“Throw these blackguards out,” I told the officers on the front desk. They set to the job with gusto.
* * *
—
“I see your efforts today have been as rewarding as mine.” Steinhauer, clearly exhausted, dropped heavily into the chair facing my desk.
“Who told you that?”
“You are not usually an easy man to read, William, but I am afraid this time it shows on your face.”
“By the look of you I take it you’ve made no progress either.”
“If, as you fear, a highly placed informant is reporting our plans and progress to Akushku, all of our efforts to find these men will have been wasted,” said Steinhauer. “He and Bozidar will have been ahead of us at every step. I wonder perhaps if the person who told you they were hiding in a club might have intended to set us searching in the wrong direction.”
Of course it had been Angela Minetti who had told me that when I had visited her in the infirmary. I believed her then, and I believed her now. It would make no sense at all that the woman who had told us of Akushku’s plot in the first place was secretly working for him. But Steinhauer was right about the clubs, at least; no point in continuing that search if Akushku had been tipped off.
I sighed and set aside the reports I’d been skimming, or rather trying to skim—the accumulated lack of sleep was starting to tell, and the words had started swimming about the page. I rubbed my eyes.
“Might I be so bold as to suggest that you take a short rest?” said Steinhauer gently. “All that can be done has been done, or is being done.”
I snorted. “Short of cancelling the funeral.”
“That I might find difficult to explain to His Imperial Majesty.”
“What have you told the Kaiser?” I was too tired to waste my breath on honorifics.
“The truth. As you instructed me.”
“Hm. It wasn’t an instruction as such, Gustav. So what does His Imperial Majesty intend to do?”
“You mean, will he be returning to Germany? Of course not. Your King, if you will forgive me, has underestimated my Emperor. My master has a duty to his country, yes, but that duty does not require him to retreat at the first whiff of gunpowder. He tells me his soldiers face death every day on behalf of their Emperor, so he can demand no less of himself.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” I said, wondering whether the Kaiser’s noble sentiments were all his own, or whether Steinhauer had contrived to plant them in the royal head.
Steinhauer smiled, basking in his master’s reflected chivalry. “An Emperor who will not appear in public for fear of a madman,” he said, “does not deserve the title.”
“Perhaps. The Tsar Alexander felt much the same, I believe.”
My reply was in poor taste, but it found its mark—Steinhauer’s smug grin vanished. He was not so young that he did not know the fate of Alexander II who, when a bomb was tossed at his carriage, insisted on stopping and getting out to confront the terrorists. They had thrown a second bomb, and the Tsar of All the Russias had bled to death in the snow with both his legs blown off.
“That was twenty years ago,” said Steinhauer. “If you and I had been in charge that day, Alexander would still be alive.”
Was he trying to reassure me, or flatter me? I wondered. I realised I was too bone-weary to work it out. There was no time to rest, but I could do the next best thing.
“Have you eaten, Gustav?”
“Not since this morning, as it happens.”
“Let’s go and see what delights await us in the canteen.”
* * *
—
“I must say, I am impressed,” said Steinhauer, blowing on a spoonful of watery Scotch broth, “at how you have managed to keep the facts of this matter out of the newspapers until now. Such censorship would not be possible, even in Germany. Word always gets out somehow.”
“It’s not censorship, it’s common sense,” I said. “Certain stories editors will agree not to publicise, knowing in time we’ll return the favour.”
“That sounds like a very cosy arrangement. In America they would call it corruption.”
“That’s rich,” I said. “Considering any German newspaper editor who knocks His Imperial Majesty gets thrown in jail and his presses smashed.” It was a welcome change of pace to be bantering with Steinhauer; teasing him was cheering me up.
“We are not so enlightened as the British or the Americans, this is true.”
“There’s no such thing as a free press anyway,” I said. “Every newspaper is at the mercy of its owner, or editor, or its advertisers. Or, God forbid, its readers.”
“Why ‘God forbid’?”
“Because good news doesn’t sell. Fear, outrage, disgust—that’s what sells. Given half a chance, if there’s nothing to be scared of, newspapers will invent something, and the public will believe it. And I don’t intend to give the press that chance.”
“Yet now, when there is something real that the public should be scared of, you are not telling them.”
“I’ll tell them when they need to know. The thing about terror—it’s not merely the act, but its impact that makes the difference. The terrorists make the press their megaphone, use it to manipulate the public. The newspapers might claim to be shocked and outraged, but every time they report, they’re feeding the fire. As far as terror is concerned, what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”
“Don’t they have a right to know the truth?”
“Truth has nothing to do with it. Whatever truth is.”
“You’re saying there’s no such thing as objective truth? I never took you for a cynic.”
“Maybe there is, but you won’t find it in the newspapers.”
“You know”—Steinhauer waved his spoon—“print is not the only medium. You and I were at the kinema the other day. Maybe you can control what appears in the newspapers, but what about images projected on a public screen?”
I nearly spat out my soup. “Kinema? Sure that’s just a novelty. Nobody’s going to pay sixpence and sit in the dark to learn what’s going on in the world.”
“It is expensive, yes, but so were books at one time. And the kinema is more powerful than books.”
“How so?”
“Because the audience does not need to know how to read. Or even speak a certain language.” Gustav leaned forwards now, as animated as I’d ever seen him. “You and I live in Babel. We are a thousand nations separated by a thousand tongues. But images on the screen need no interpretation—the truth is there for the world to see.”
“If you say so, Gustav.” I pushed my half-empty plate aside. “But if you ask me, for a night’s entertainment, nothing beats a good tune and a decent piano.”
“Sir.” It was Lawrence, in a rush, bearing a single small envelope. “This came just now, sir, addressed to you by name.”
“They’re all addressed to me by name,” I said. That was another disadvantage of being a famous policeman. “Bring it to Chief Inspector Quinn.”
“No, sir, the messenger who brought it—he said to tell you it’s from your lodger.” I confess I was mystified for a moment, before I realised the note must be from Angela, using an identity only I would know. I practically snatched the envelope from Lawrence and ripped it open.
“You take in tenants, William?” asked Steinhauer, clearly intrigued.
“The boy says she promised him threepence,” said Lawrence as I scanned the note.
“Give him sixpence,” I said, and kicked my chair back.
William—I found Iosif—in old factory for furniture, Stone Street in Hackney—
I keep watch—
AM
18
Hackney was forty-five minutes from the Embankment, but that day our charabancs made it in half an hour, the clatter of our
bells scattering pedestrians before us. We were still a few streets away when I smelled smoke—not the comforting familiar fug of coal fires, but the harsh bitter stink of burning paint and horsehair plaster. Sure enough as we rattled into the broad cobbled road called Stone Street we saw a crowd gathered at one end, and beyond them two Fire Brigade engines, blinkered horses stamping uneasily between their shafts. The firemen had forced open the tall broad gates leading to the factory yard, and through the gap I could see the factory itself, a long, squat building disused for years, judging by the broken windows and the weeds that were sprouting from the gutters. The ground floor was ablaze within—the tall windows were glowing orange, and even as I jumped down from the charabanc another one shattered, sending down a cascade of glass fragments and releasing gouts of viscous black smoke.
I ordered Dubois and the other officers to stay back—our initial plan to surround the site and search it was redundant now—and forced my way through the crowd of gawkers to consult the senior fireman. He was easy enough to spot, sweating under his brass helmet, bawling at his men to gather their equipment and fall back.
“I need to get in there.” I had to yell over the roar of the fire and the cracking of wood exploding from heat. I flashed my warrant card at him, but the fire chief barely glanced at it.
“Nobody’s going in there,” he shouted back. “In ten minutes the whole place will be ablaze—it’s all we can do to stop it spreading.” No need to ask if the fire had been set deliberately—even through the acrid smoke I could make out the tang of lamp-oil. Akushku must have doused the ground floor with it.
“Are the stairs intact?”
“At the south end, yes, but not for much longer—”
Steinhauer had fought his way to my side, and now he handed me a battery-lamp. It was as if he had read my mind.
“Akushku always burns his evidence,” I shouted.
“So perhaps there is evidence in there,” he shouted back.
We dashed through the open gate past the retreating firemen, ignoring the yells of their chief, damning us for fools and maniacs. At the southernmost end of the building the main doors had been hacked almost off their hinges by fire-axes. Beyond them was a broad hallway with stairs straight ahead and a roller door on the left giving onto a factory floor that was already an inferno, its heart a pile of wooden offcuts and broken furniture that had been doused in oil and set ablaze. Smoke swirled around us, and as one Steinhauer and I pulled our scarves up over our mouths. He nodded towards the stairs and made to dash ahead of me until I grabbed his arm.
“Booby-traps!” I yelled, my voice—already muffled by the scarf—barely audible under the roaring and shattering and cracking. But Steinhauer heard me well enough; his eyes widened and he nodded. Turning back to the stairs he raised his lamp and moved upwards cautiously, checking every step for taut wires or triggers concealed under trash. The agonising seconds this caution cost us seemed to stretch into hours. My scarf was choking me, and the smoke stung my eyes; I could feel sweat coursing down my back in a torrent, whether from the heat of the air around us or from sheer funk I could not say. But both of us made it to the half landing and turned to the second flight—and Steinhauer, sensing movement, whipped out his pistol and held his lamp high. Following his look, I saw what had startled him—a rat, whiskers twitching, skittering along the topmost step, terrified of us below but terrified too of the approaching fire it could smell and taste. As it hesitated half a dozen more rats, filthy and panicking, ran past it and spilled down the stairs, round and between our legs and over our boots as Steinhauer stood transfixed, too revolted even to shudder. But only for a moment—Steinhauer ascended faster up this flight, and I hurried after him—hoping that if there had been any trap the rats would have set it off for us.
Now on the upper level we found ourselves outside another pair of doors, their cream-coloured paint flaking off in scabs and their frosted-glass panels cracked. Beyond them was only darkness—it looked as if the fire had not yet reached this floor. Gingerly Steinhauer pressed a hand against the door on the right, and looked at me. I nodded, and he shoved it back, turning sideways and bracing himself for a blast, as if that would make a difference. But no blast came. Had Akushku been in too much of a hurry? I wondered. I raised a hand, signalling Steinhauer to stay back while I went ahead—my turn to be vanguard. I stepped into the corridor beyond, scanning the rear of the left-hand door, but that too was bare of wires or triggers. On my right were two doorways, and a short distance ahead the corridor opened out into another workshop. As I stepped cautiously forwards, my own gun and lamp raised, I fancied I could feel the heat of the conflagration below through the soles of my boots. A quick glance into each office as I passed it revealed nothing except rubbish and rubble—apart from one angled desk still bearing a curling yellowed sketch, as if the draughtsman had wandered off in the middle of a job and never returned.
From below I heard and felt the rumble of collapsing masonry, and from somewhere beyond that angry shouting. Were the fire fighters yelling at us to get out? But we couldn’t, not yet. I could feel Steinhauer behind me, almost breathing down my neck, as I reached the end of the passage and turned the corner, and beheld a glimpse of hell.
The abandoned workshop was illuminated from without by burning sparks flying up from the ground floor, and here and there even tongues of flame. The smoke that billowed and swirled around us refracted the light in lurid shades of orange, silhouetting in the middle of the room the figure of a man seated in a rickety wooden chair, his legs splayed out and head bowed. We crept closer.
It was Remington, the abortionist. His hands were tied behind the chair-back, holding him upright; his shirtfront was soaked in blood, some of it from his mouth, most from the gaping gash in his throat. Steinhauer stooped, lifted the dead man’s head by the hair and peered up into his face. Rising again quickly he caught my eye and made a sign—a pair of scissors closing in front of his mouth.
They’d cut Remington’s tongue out.
There was nothing we could do for him now, and nothing he could do for us. I felt a rush of guilt and shame at having coerced Remington into this, at the risk of his life—but then I thought, Akushku would have murdered him even if we had not been on his tail, even after he had treated Bozidar’s injury. Remington alive was a liability. But the brutality of it, the sadism, was still sickening.
Steinhauer turned to his right to explore, I to my left. The smoke was so thick now my lamp could barely cut through it, and I nearly collided with a long wooden workbench that seemed to run the length of the room, scored and scarred by years of workmen’s tools. It was thick with old dust and fresh ash, but otherwise bare—except, I noticed, for one oddity: a single frond of fern. Picking it up I saw it was almost fresh, curling a little at the edges, and dotted with white ash, but not dust. How on earth had it got here? I nearly tossed it aside but on a whim slipped it into my pocket—I needed something, anything, to show for the lunatic risk Steinhauer and I were taking.
“William!”
Hearing Steinhauer yell, I turned, and my heart nearly stopped. In the last thirty seconds smoke had started gushing through the gaps in the floorboards, and now there were founts of flame licking up the outside of the building and blackening the remaining windows. Along with ash drifting in the air were burning cinders—one settled on the back of my hand, and I brushed it off cursing as I floundered across the room towards Steinhauer, half fearing that in the murk I might collide with Remington’s bloody corpse and fall. But there was Steinhauer, red-rimmed eyes just visible between his scarf and his hat, beckoning me. The other side of the workshop was lined with another long workbench reflecting the first, but this one was not bare—Steinhauer was pointing out a dark red stain that spilled over the lip of the bench, speckled now with white ash. Clearly this had served as Remington’s operating table: at the edge of the puddle of blood was a discarded scalpel, and beyond that a s
evered arm. Where it had been attached to the shoulder it had been cleanly and surgically separated, but farther down, before the elbow, it was a bloody mass of discoloured flesh. The forearm and hand were intact but blackened—not with soot or dirt, but from within, by infection.
Remington had amputated Bozidar’s shattered arm, and his reward had been a cut throat and a severed tongue.
Steinhauer made to pick up the bloody limb, but I tapped his shoulder and shook my head. We needed no grisly souvenir to confirm that Akushku had been here, and that Bozidar was still alive, and a viable threat. Remington’s body too we would leave behind, or we’d be joining him on his pyre.
Steinhauer went before me, back the way we had come, but a damn sight quicker. The short corridor was so dense with smoke by now we could not even see the double doors at the end, and when we reached them I had barely time to glimpse the red glow beyond the glazed panels before Steinhauer, glancing back to check on me, shoved the door open and stepped out, only to drop out of sight before he even had time to yell. I dashed through after him and found the floorboards had given way beneath his feet, and he was wedged halfway through the floor, scrabbling for a handhold while a shower of sparks danced around him. Grabbing his arms I heaved with all my strength, praying the floor under my boots would not give way too and tip us both into the white inferno below. The air itself seemed on fire, and even through my scarf the heat of it scorched my throat, but I managed to drag the young German up far enough for him to throw a leg over the lip of the hole—I swear the cloth of his trousers was smouldering—heave himself out and roll free. No time for thanks or expressions of relief—we scrambled to our feet and headed for the stairs, praying they and our luck would hold, staying as close as we could to the edges where the steps might still be strong enough to take our weight. Somehow we made it to the half landing, and by now the very walls of the stairwell were on fire and flames rippling along the ceiling. Steinhauer clattered down the stairs and raced for the door. I watched where he stepped, then raced after him.
M, King's Bodyguard Page 17
